[Yet another request] Ability to change created addresses

[xdcdx]

Hi there,

An option for changing the number in already created addresses would be great.

You will think, what a stupid thing, all mails sent to keyword.xxx.user@spamgourmet.com will arrive, no matter what xxx is.

But this would be useful for address masking. I just discovered that you can create address by keyword.user@spamgourmet.com and that is neater than keyword.number.user@spamgourmet.com.

Sorry about my mini-flood of requests/suggestions, heh

Best regards,
xDCDx

[josh]

I'm not sure what you mean -- yes, you can create an address with word.user@spamgourmet.com -- the system will use the number 3 for the address. You can then change the number of remaining messages by editing the address, like any other. Do you mean that you want to change the actual form of the address?

[xdcdx]

My problem is, I have some word.20.user@spamgourmet.com addresses, and I use address masking for replying to the mail I receive to them. So I wanted the address masking to say word.user@spamgourmet.com in the reply-to field, rather than the address with the '20' in between, and that can't be done because the addresses can't be deleted, just hiden.

I know it is really a quite stupid thing, it's just that it seems to me more aesthetic without the '20'.

Best regards,
xDCDx

[josh]

Here's the deal with that -- It would be truly trivial to allow the user to submit a change to the stored exemplar of the disposable address along with the other things that can be edited (number, sender, etc.)

I've wanted to do this for myself, because I have addresses that predate the exemplars, and so I can't use them for reply-address-masking (I could go into the db and change them, yes, but that would be cheating).

The reason I've hesitated is because it would be so easy to hang oneself that way if the user made a typo or (more likely) didn't understand the implications of changing the exemplar. If a user put in something wrong (eg, an address from another service, or whatever), the message from the user to the 3d party would arrive OK, but when the third party replied, it would go to the new (incorrect) exemplar address, and the user woudn't receive it -- the 3d party would probably get an error back, but would have no way to contact the user.

Trouble is, address masking itself is hard to explain, but generally works transparently, and so most users don't have to understand it. You can see the potential for support problems by opening this up.

That said, if we can come up with a palatable way to do it, I'd me more than happy to. I've only thought about it, I haven't discussed it, so I may be missing something obvious.

[xdcdx]

Hello,

What do you mean exactly with 'addresses that predate the exemplars' ? I don't understand.

What I meant was an option to just changing the number between the 'address_word' and the 'user' (for example switching between 'foo.20.bar@spamgourmet.com' to 'foo.bar@spamgourmet.com' or to 'foo.hithere.bar@spamgourmet', all of these would go to the same address), because rather than changing the other things you could create a new spamgourmet address, couldn't you?
So in order to implement this, syntax checking to see that the new exemplar points to the same disposable address than the old one should be made.

Another good alternative for this would be the option for really deleting disposable addresses. This way, you can create it again with the new exemplar.
The only problem I see with this is if the count already is 0. But then a big red warning telling you that if you delete it spammers can send you spam again to this address would help it.

Best regards,
xDCDx

[jbs]

I'm not sure what you mean -- yes, you can create an address with word.user@spamgourmet.com -- the system will use the number 3 for the address. You can then change the number of remaining messages by editing the address, like any other. Do you mean that you want to change the actual form of the address?

Is this an official "spec" so to speak, i.e. this format of word.user@** will always work? I never knew of that before, but I'd definitely prefer to use that format and just manually reup the numbers to 20. Especially in instances where I give out my email to a person (as opposed to a form) it'd be much easier to communicate.

Even for ones where I'm just entering it on a form, I'd just as soon not have to type .20. in the middle. So addresses of this format will always be accepted?

--Jason

[jbs]

Here's the deal with that -- It would be truly trivial to allow the user to submit a change to the stored exemplar of the disposable address along with the other things that can be edited (number, sender, etc.)
...
The reason I've hesitated is because it would be so easy to hang oneself that way if the user made a typo or (more likely) didn't understand the implications of changing the exemplar.
...
That said, if we can come up with a palatable way to do it, I'd me more than happy to. I've only thought about it, I haven't discussed it, so I may be missing something obvious.

I agree with xdcdx here, just limit the change to the number/word in between the periods (including having NO word in there at all if I choose) and some spamgourmet domain (for safety reasons you'd end up excluding people who use domains that forward all to spamgourmet, but they can't get their domain in an exemplar now anyhow I suspect).

So if I started with the exemplar woohoo.20.nouser@someDGdomain.com I would see options like this:
woohoo.____.nouser@_________

The first blank would allow me to type in any word or number or leave it empty, the second blank would have a drop down of all available SG domains.

This way the resulting exemplar would still, necessarily point to the same account, and the same trigger word, but now my address masking would point back to the address in the format I want.

This would be great for those exemplars with spamgourmet as the domain even though I use xoxy.

--Jason

[Guest]

Hello again.

I have just found a bug regarding exemplars.

When you use the option 'send message from disposable address' and then 'make a new one', if you fill word and select domain, but leave the number blank, it creates a new address with the following exemplar: 'word..user@spamgourmet.com'
Sending mails to that exemplar get trashed by spamgourmet without increasing the deleted count.
Sending mails to word.whatever.user@spamgourmet.com or to word.user@spamgourmet.com arrive perfectly, and the count is decreased in the faulty exemplar.

Obviosly, with this bug, 'address masking' would provide a wrong address that points to nowhere, so it can't be used.

I guess that just a little modification of the pl script that manages the submited data would fix this.

Exemplar changing or true address deleting is still needed. :P

Best regards,
xDCDx

[josh]

thanks -- that bug is fixed...

[dc]

So if I started with the exemplar woohoo.20.nouser@someDGdomain.com I would see options like this:
woohoo.____.nouser@_________

The first blank would allow me to type in any word or number or leave it empty, the second blank would have a drop down of all available SG domains.

This way the resulting exemplar would still, necessarily point to the same account, and the same trigger word, but now my address masking would point back to the address in the format I want.

I'd like to second that I, also, would definitely make use of the ability to pretty-up the return address exemplars which are used with reply address masking. What I was looking for was something exactly like what Jason/jbs suggested above.

In fact this is the reason I finally found and joined the forums, to see if this option was hiding somewhere.

(btw, you ppl are the best thing since me@privacy.net. okay...better...)